


In Search of the Unknown Episode 1

by KennyF7



Series: In search of the unknown episodes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anthology, Hidden meanings, Horror, Lovecraftian, Paranormal, Psychological, Suspence, Thriller, disturbing topics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28646133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KennyF7/pseuds/KennyF7
Summary: This world is filled with many horrors. They hide in the shadows and prey on the weak and downtrodden. Dalen and his film team are trying to investigate these paranormal occurrences for their documentary series. They will look into the experiences of victims of ominous cryptids, in their Search of the Unknown.
Series: In search of the unknown episodes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100765





	In Search of the Unknown Episode 1

The air felt stale when they open the door. The winding rushing into the dusty building. The building was two stories and was likely home to a small programming company, though it was hard to tell from the former owner's vague descriptions. The evidence of that theory came from the computers strewn about, its wires covering the walls and floor like nerves cover the body. Bugs crawled about it, using its cracks as places to skitter and hide. Luckily for the film students, there was no evidence of any mold or rot that they couldn't fix. One of the rooms was fully empty, lacking carpeting, chairs, or light. The building was sweltering, it's lack of ventilation turned it into something not too far from an oven. Sweat pooled onto Trevor's brow, and he made it very vocal on his discomfort. David may have felt annoyed at these conditions, but he kept it to himself.  
Dalen, unlike his compatriots, felt quite happy with what he earned, it was cheap, and despite it seeming completely wrecked was easy to clean. It would only take some cleaning supplies and maybe a large van to remove everything. The overall cost of the building and the cleanup for it was cheaper than anything they could have asked for. The best thing was that it wasn't for rent, this building was all there's  
This excuse did not sway the minds of David and Trevor, who partly did regret joining in on Dalen’s project. Yet, they felt that they couldn’t leave now. Maybe they expected something better, or that Dalen would finally be reasonable and not bought something so expensive. What would the extra space be for? Still, they yielded, what better did they have after college.  
2 weeks later  
Ok, after moving the old out and the new in, the building had a new feel to it. The halls and rooms sanitized and the proper equipment in, there was a sense of new possibilities. The empty room had a Green screen added in with a small stool and new lighting. A room infested with ants now had cameras and mics stored and ready, David liked it there since he was made to manage it, and the quiet felt good. Trevor's favorite place was the new editing room on the first floor, where he mostly worked. Natural light came in through large windows and was one of the few windows in the building, a luxury Trevor indulged in.  
Trevor’s second favorite part of the building was the back. The building was quite secluded, been close to town but far enough to have forestry nearly engulf it. Trevor stayed there to smoke, sitting on a cheap lawn chair he bought and listening to nature. Though the was something bizarre. In the middle of a clearing behind the building was a pole. It stood by what Trevor would think was about ten feet. It had a red line that wrapped around it like a snake. There was a weird quirk to the line where if you squint your eyes enough, it looked like it was moving. Slowly spinning up the pool and into nothing. This to Trevor was a cool trick of the mind.  
Over the weeks, Dalen had been spreading the news about his new project on social media and anywhere else he could think of. The project was simple, to create a documentary series on the unspoken stories of the paranormal. The name of the series would be called "In Search of the Unknown". The main idea was to talk about a person's experiences of the paranormal and do research into what may have happened and the verifiability of the story. This meant Dalen had to ask for the stories of people on the internet. This was difficult for Dalen since most of these stories are tall tales. A few were easily found to be hoaxes or jokes, and the most annoying part for Dalen, they were often mostly talked about cryptids. Dalen wanted to try something new, and these stories weren't unique. Everyone's heard a story about Big Foot or the Loch ness monster and even Moth man, and it seemed uninteresting to him to tell stories already told about in other shows. So, for most of his day out of cleaning their new studio, Dalen was looking through different stories.  
This felt like torture, reading through Email after email. He up his desktop with documents that led to nowhere. This went on for a few weeks when he received a message from one of his supporters. On a crowdfunding website that Dalen set up and account, there was a small message.  
It says the following.  
“Greetings, this is an important message.  
I have recently come to discover you are trying at a series researching the paranormal, this assignment I assume will be a daunting task, so I would like to give you a good starting point. To make it easier for you. I hope this is successful and that it'll become easier for you to find the truth down the line. It is quite interesting.  
As extra motivation, I will hand you a large sum of money if show this story as your first episode.  
Thank you, and hope to see the video soon”  
Attached to it was a file.  
Its file name was “Sasquatch”  
This angered Dalen. This man asked for him to do a story about bigfoot as his first story. Was he serious?  
What made him read the story was the offer for extra money, which he needed to keep himself and his Colleagues from starving.  
At 7 pm, he reluctantly read the story.  
Story by Emma Raisend  
On my experiences on what I believe to be Sasquatch.  
I know that it may seem weird to talk about Sasquatch running around in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but I know what I saw. I think. It was hard to tell. Plus, I have no other name to give what I saw, if anyone has ever given it a name. My memories of the experience. It almost feels ethereal, like a dream you may have. I may almost dismiss it, that is until I remember the very real death that occurred after I saw it.  
I think I must start from the beginning for this to truly make sense.  
I lived in a small town in Tennessee. It was hard to tell when the town was first founded since whatever was left of the old buildings was buried by the new. I say new, but they didn't look like they were, dilapidated and unkempt houses, junk and scrap could be spread across a person's house. My parents were lucky enough to higher standards and kept their house in better condition. The house including mine was usually one story with dirt or gravel driveways. Each house was covered in forest, isolating most of everyone, and isolating us from the rest of the world  
My family was slightly well off compared to anyone else, my father being a doctor and my mother being a nurse. With this, I was given more things that anyone else couldn't. We had a small TV and I unlike others grew up being able to watch the news and see faces other than the ones in the town.  
I was a troubled teenager, I did not like the place I lived in, covered in dense trees, and trapped with dense people. I felt more intelligent than the other people in the town, even the adults. Looking back on it, I was more learned than others, having access to books other than the book of revelations. I was often confrontational, feeling angry at people just as stuck as I was. The main difference that I had from them, was that I could leave. I didn't need to carry on a business, take care of my old family, and I had the qualifications to find work in the outside world.  
My anger at the people there wasn't all just in my head. Most of them didn't like me a few even hated me. A few felt jealous, but many saw me as a smarmy brat, so full of ego and thoughts.  
What I think angered them most was that I questioned their world view. They believed in a higher power, yet I was skeptical, seeing the stories as absurd. They would sneer at me, and in a condescending tone would explain to me about how it was blasphemy. It raised more questions for me and made me bitter about the small church we went to. The pastor had a special hatred towards me. He often would make fiery speeches about the dangers of questioning or giving up on the faith. It didn’t take much to anger him, and his anger would spread like a plague, even to my parents. He one time convinced my parents to take every single book I had except for a small Bible.  
I remembered what he said to me, that holier than though tone he had “Mam, these fickle things have clouded your mind, and the devil has filled your head with doubt, but don’t worry I’ll help to drag you out before you fall into the deep pit”.  
This only made me feel all the sourer on Church and the god they believed in, at first it was doubted, now it felt more personal.  
Usually, after church, I would go out into the forest to think alone without feeling so looked upon. It was nice to feel the wind hit my face and to think of somewhere else. I once walked a whole mile away from home, and I nearly stayed out past my curfew. The most beautiful part of all was the shadows the trees cast. Their branches and leaves creating complex webs of darkness. Grand lines of light would cut through the trees and onto the mulchy ground.  
This is where I found it. The Sasquatch. I was doing my general routine after church, calming down after an especially seething conversation with the people there. I could argue with them, or else I would be in trouble, so I stormed off home. The day was still early, so it would be exciting to see my version of the Aurora Borealis. To rest in the chilly wind and warm sunlight.  
Everything seemed normal while I was walking, though I did wonder what that new smell. The aroma gave me the sense that something died and was decomposing nearby, yet no matter how far I walked, the smell stayed as strong as it was.  
The other perplexing thing was what I believed to be mold on a few of the trees and plants. The mold was oil black and when I poked it with a stick was extremely sticky. I saw hair and leaves sticking on the larger patches on the trees. Maybe some animal scraped its body on whatever it was. The mold was completely foreign to me. I began to feel uneasy.  
After half an hour of walking, I felt better and was about to go back when I saw movement in the tree lines. Something long was moving across them. After a second of looking upon the silhouette, I realized it was a long black arm, its full form being masked by the piercing sunlight. Something dripped off it, and I saw clumps of leaves and fur covering it. The arms were about the length of a school bus. It had long spindly fingers the looked like tentacles protruding firm a thick trunk. It was unimaginably horrifying; my neck hairs went up.  
I tried to trace my eyes to the arm's origin, and then I saw a second arm just as repulsive as the other. Then I saw it. Its massive body, engulfing me in size and presence. How am I not able to notice something so grand in size? Was I this careless?  
I saw a long neck and small round head move into view. Bubbles welled upon it as if it was boiling. A few of the bubbles popped, leaving disgusting residue. The other bubbles stayed strong, stretching themselves enough to look as If they'll give way, but not enough to. Grime from the forest floor was all over it like it dragged its body for miles. On its head were two eyes and a toothy smile. Its eyes were glossed over and milky white. It looked to be blind, but I had the feeling that it could sense my presence. As if it knew my very existence. Its teeth were disturbingly clean and shiny, not being subject to the bile that covered it or was it. Its teeth looked so human-like, and it looked so excited to have me. I felt like this thing was going to eat me.  
I wanted to run, to scream, but either pure terror or something I do not begin to understand kept me there. The thing's arms came closer and wrapped around me. Its fingers running across me, like it was tasting me.  
Then it used its long fingers to lift my head towards its face.  
It came closer and closer; its smile became wider and ever wider. It came over so close I could feel its light breathing touch my face. I wanted to cry. For what felt like an hour it started and I felt my whole life flash before my eyes.  
Then something bizarre happened.  
Its face contorted into a disappointed frown. Then it said in a deep and monotone voice.  
“You don’t believe”  
It’s grip on me ended, and it moved its bulbous body to another direction. Instead of it dragging its body, it began to shift its body across the tree line. Its arms moving as if there were no joints.  
I ran away as fast as I could once whatever had frozen me had left. I went in whatever direction was opposite to where it had gone.  
By the time I came upon a road, it was nightfall. I collapsed at the roadside. A small pick up truck stopped when it saw me. Out came our pastor.  
It was one of the only times I ever saw him concerned. He asked me what happened and if I was ok. With tears in my eyes, I told him about the thing in the woods. He gave me a look of horrified realization. He told me to get in the car, and he sped to whatever location.  
He looked like he needed to go warn someone of a bomb like he knew there was something that needed to be done now.  
Once we stopped, I looked out the window to see the church and from the back of the truck, our pastor unloading gasoline cans. He told me to help him, and I did as he pleased. I was so much in shock; it was hard to process what was happening around me.  
We emptied every single one of them onto the floor, and to what seemed most important to him to lit alight, the bibles.  
We went out outside. He lit a match, and the church went alight. This moment would have seemed cathartic if it weren’t for the situation surrounding it.  
The pastor looked at me with what seemed like remorse in his eyes. He told me that he would have to go.  
In a sorrowful voice "Without the church, it doesn't want you, but as a man of God, it will always want me" he looked down at the Rosary he always kept with him and pulled it off.  
I felt so confused, I begged to know, what that thing was, what it wanted, and why it didn’t want me.  
He laughed, he gave the expression of care and understanding, a man who showed to be so bitter to me with a zealous annoyance to his beliefs, the last thing he gave me was compassion.  
“Emma, you’re a smart girl, don’t waste it on trying to know things you will never understand” and he walked past me away from the Church, and into the darkness “And to be honest, I barely know any of this, and I have no answers”.  
The last words he said, and I will never forget “Alright beast, you’ve found me, and you can take my life, and once you do, I will join the great cityscape of Lost Carcossa!”  
That’s when I heard a loud snap and crunch like hearing a cherry being pulled from its steam and eaten. Then I heard the steady drip that I didn’t want to know the origin of.  
Alone on the damp concrete, I cried as the building burned. Curled in a ball, rejecting a world I was scared to understand.  
That was the end of her story.  
After a week of research, Dalen had found the name of the town “New Byzantium”. This along with a news article that spoke of the possible event that correlated with it.  
The Article talks about a pastor who destroyed his church in an obvious case of arson. A teenager name Emma Raisend was found, she seemed exhausted and delirious. Some speculate the pastor had drugged her, though the evidence was not conclusive. It is also speculated that the pastor had killed himself or ran away. Either is unknown, because he wasn’t found again dead or alive, but a large pool of blood was found at the crime scene. Enough that he couldn’t have survived long without passing out from shock.  
The part that made this investigation more bizarre was what was found in the wreckage. In a room hidden from the people of the town was safe. That when opened contained multiple fake identities along with items from a certain religious group. This group is called the Church the Great Lord, who from the few things we know of them, believes God resides in the sea. They also seem to concentrate on the infinite scale and power of God. This sect of Christianity was highly secluded and secretive, only having followers in one town in Oregon.  
It is theorized by many that the pastor, named Joshua Seavan, and was a former more fallow who resided in the town. He had to have left either slightly before or slightly after 1991 when all the town’s residence left for unexplained reasons.  
Dalen saw this story as a perfect beginning, with a great amount of mystery. It does annoy him a bit that a story about Big Foot was his first story, though he wouldn’t call whatever that thing was that.  
The video was a hit, though not perfect, it put them out there and more people seemed interested.  
Later a few hours after the video was made, Dalen had a donation from his supporter that sent it. It was one hundred dollars along with a weekly thousand-dollar subscription. Everyone at the studio felt so perplexed. Who was this person? Why is someone who has so much, want to spend it on them?  
They never knew what they were getting into.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hope you like this. If you want please give feedback so I know how to improve this story in the future. I have a lot planned for it, so I'm interested in what works and what doesn't.


End file.
